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Get Informed In our “Moving Averages & Bollinger Bands” webinar we discussed how Bollinger Bands can be useful in giving us information about the underlying state of the market and how we can use that information to develop trading opportunities. Following on from that I want to expand this idea and take a look at the different market types we generally find. No market is trending or ranging permanently, price action always moves through different conditions and even within a trending phase

In this article of FX Trading Revolution's educational series, we will show basic facts and terminology that some traders will probably know. However, we will present these facts in the correct way. In the article we will move on to the facts about Forex, which you probably do not know, but which you must know to trade in the financial markets profitably. 1) Forex stands for FOReign EXchange, and means trading with foreign currencies. It is the biggest and the most liquid financial market

Experiencing losses is as much part of forex trading as winning trades. Unfortunately, a lot of traders take losses personally and they end up reacting to their losses by taking revenge trades. Revenge trading is mainly driven by the fear of being wrong. It’s usually when a trader, coming from a particularly frustrating loss, decides to make up for it by being more aggressive in his/her next trades. This is dangerous for your account for two main reasons. First, it forces you to throw your

Have you ever had a trading strategy that just started losing? Maybe, you spent hours and hours coding, testing and watching the markets in a demo environment. Then, you finally turn your strategy live, and it just starts losing right out of the gate? What do you do now? Do you keep trading it? Do you stop? Was there something wrong with your testing or programming? I am not going to dig into this last question today, but I would like to address what you can and should do now. What do you do

If you’ve been reading about the forex industry long enough, then I’m sure you’ve found tons of offers from forex-related discussions, Google searches, and even your Facebook feed on “Holy Grail” trading systems that claim to be easy, cheap, and are guaranteed money-makers. You’re tempted by traders who swear that they make $100/day or 5,000 pips/month using strategies that you need to ask them about. Some of you might take a bite and buy what they’re selling while others scramble to develop

The interbank market is where supply and demand meets – for the financial sector including banks, investment funds, central banks, international financial institutions, brokers, and in the best situation also orders from broker's clients. Understanding the principles of how financial markets and the execution of transactions on the interbank market work is essential knowledge for successful trading on the financial markets. Imagine the interbank market as a financial system in which the world's

When the US Dollar went off the gold standard and began to float against other currencies, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange began to create currency futures to provide a place where banks and corporations could hedge the indirect risks associated with dealing in foreign currencies. More recently, currency gyrations have centered on a massive move away from currency futures to more direct trading in the Forex spot markets where professional currency traders, alongside with forwarding contracts,

2. Identify support and resistance on a chart In this section we are going through the basics of support and resistance lines. S&R lines conform the most basic analytical tools and are commonly used as visual markers to trace the levels where the price found a temporary barrier. In other words, where price had trouble crossing. These levels can be found on any chart and any time frame either 1 minute or 1 month. Some of these lines remain valid for years. Lines are very powerful tools for

Traders tend to focus a lot of their time and energy on their trade entries. In fact, if you browse through online communities and forums, you’ll notice that majority of trade discussions revolve around entries. But while it’s very important to know how and when to enter a trade, it’s equally crucial to know when to exit. Most people have a detailed plan and set rules on how to enter the market, but newbie traders often overlook the importance of having an exit strategy. In this week’s edition

Topics covered in this chapter: Get a deeper level of understanding by learning how to look beyond the charts and understand the supply, the demand and the order flow responsible for the creation of price action. How to look at charts without indicators. How to maximize gains and reduce risk with the precise identification of recurring price action patterns. More than 30 illustrations to help you recognize breakouts, reversals, pullbacks and gaps. Stop chasing the market and learn to anticipate

Traders deal with two different kinds of returns when they speak of profits and losses made in the markets. Realized returns, often referred to as "booked", are those which come about as the result of a position which has been closed out. Unrealized, or "paper", gains and losses are those which involve open positions. An example of a paper return would be when one buys a stock at $100 and it rises to $110, but the trade remains open. In this case the trader has an unrealized gain of $10. Were

Charlie Burton, Founder of Ezee Trader, welcomed Dale Peters, a Private Trader, to the Tip TV Finance Show to discuss how to become a swing trader. Topics Covered: Trading, Trading Education If you are interested in how to become a trader or tips for new traders - Watch the video.

In forex trading, actively managing open positions is just as important as coming up with your plan. Here are three tips to help you manage your active trades. 1. Stay in touch with the market. Whether you’re a hardcore technical or fundamentals trader, or maybe a little bit of each, you can’t deny that economic reports influence price action. This is why it pays to keep tabs on the events that pose risks to your trades. Some say that the market’s reaction to the news is more important than the

For forex traders, nothing embodies freedom more than those who trade full-time. After all, full-time traders enjoy freedom from their box-type offices, freedom of time, and freedom to choose which trading opportunities to take. Unfortunately, this brand of independence isn’t for everyone. Just like too much freedom can do more harm than good for some economies, not all traders are ready to trade full-time. So how do you know when you’re ready for full-time trading? From what we’ve seen from

Thanks to the advancement of technology, you no longer need to be a full-time forex broker or floor trader to have access to the markets. You can simply hop onto the Internet and trade even from the comforts of your toilet seat. This, in turn, has led to an increase in part-time traders. This group of people includes students, young professionals, and old retirees – basically anyone who has to allocate most of his or her time to other endeavors, but still want to dip their hands into the

For those who aren’t comfortable with purely mechanical systems or those who get carried away by their emotions in using a 100% discretionary approach, a hybrid forex trading style could work better for you. If applied properly, this type of trading can combine the best of both worlds and be a better way to trade for you. What’s the difference between a mechanical and discretionary trading style anyway? A purely mechanical system requires the trader to trust a system of signals based on price

Forex trading may seem like an easy job to outsiders. To them, all a forex trader does is sit in front of a computer, read a bunch of news articles, put up some lines on a chart, and then money will magically appear. But every trader will tell you that this is not the case. Every single time a trader goes on his trading platform, he knows that he will be exposed to a variety of stressful situations. This makes forex traders very susceptible to what I call “mental burnout.” This pertains to the

With market sentiment shifting on a dime these days, it’s important to make sure that you’re able to adjust your forex strategy. You see, staying profitable in the long-run requires you to be able to adapt to constantly changing market conditions. Ever stop to think how casinos actually work and make money? Casinos rake in a ton of dough every single day, despite the fact that casino operators cannot predict with certainty which person will be a total noob and split 5s against a dealer showing

I’ve talked about how sharing the same characteristics as poker players and elite athletes can help you in forex trading. This time, I’m gonna tell you why you should trade like a scientist. So if you listened in class back in grade school when the scientific method was taught, pat yourself on the back! Having a scientific mindset may just give you an edge in the forex market. Scientific method: The basics Scientists always start with observation. To put simply, it is the process of using the

Though good, dedicated trading mentors are hard to come by these days, there are plenty of other forex traders out there who are willing to share tips that could help improve their trading performance. Let’s take a look at four classic nuggets that are easily taken for granted and why we should pay closer attention to them. 1. Adjust your expectations. Some newbies have unrealistic expectations due to “get rich quick” schemes that brought their attention to forex trading in the first place.

The Different Market Types Classifying the various market types we see is an idea that features prominently in the work of eminent trading psychologist and coach Dr. Van Tharp. Although his work is particularly detailed and features around 25 distinct market types the main market types to understand and learn to identify are as follows: Bull Normal Bull normal is an upward moving market that has steady momentum behind it and is generally bought on dips, with price action displaying the typical

It is each and every forex trader’s dream to become consistently profitable. However, I think all of us can agree that reaching that goal is easier said than done. Most of us perceive that keeping a cool head in the midst of a large drawdown is the key to becoming consistently profitable. I also think that keeping track of your forex performance and emotions when you’re winning is just as important. You wouldn’t want to lose your mojo while you’re on a winning streak, would you? If you answered

In this weeks trading truths I want to address the realities of trading for a living full time. The internet is full of false promises, of turning your $100 account into a $1,000,00 with a year. Most wannabe traders are attracted to the business by the allure of the opportunity to make life changing sums of money. Others are attracted by the potential freedom trading can provide, with the opportunity to trade form anywhere on the planet as long as you can access a stable internet connection.

Straight through processing (STP) brokers operate without an intervention of a “dealing desk”. There is no market making such that all orders are directed to liquidity providers (other brokers and banks) where they are executed at the bid rate provided by those liquidity providers. Everything from placing the orders to closing them is done without any manual intervention. In such an engagement, the liquidity provider is a principal and final counterparty to your trade. STP brokers are known to

As 2016 opens up I want to take this opportunity to review the major trading themes in play as we head into 2016. As we finish digesting our festive fun, now is a great time to take the pulse of the major trading themes dictating market action as we open the books for the year. 1. CHINA As traders returned to their desks today one of the major themes from 2015 appears to be rolling over into 2016. In the late summer of 2015 concerns about the Chinese growth outlook took center stage, post the

Once the tree is down, the last cracker pulled and Auld Lang Syne is a distant echo, our attention turns quickly back to our trading screens, as we are eager to get the year off to a profitable start, take a minute to review some our 2016 top tactics to help you successfully navigate the first few trading days of 2016. 1. Make Your Main Christmas Present To Yourself A New Trading Journal Journal Journal Journal – is one of my core mantras in trading. It has been the tool that has done most to

What will 2016 bring us? A new year is coming! It's time to make resolutions. As usual, some will be kept and some will be broken, but at the moment let's keep the faith in our own willpower! We' like to share with you a list of New Year resolutions that we have gathered from some of our best contributors. Do you want to know what goals your favourite Forex traders and instructors have set for the year to come? Don't wait more and read! Check previous year's experts resolutions! - 2013 -

WHY WE SHOULD SWAP SCREEN TIME FOR LEISURE TIME OVER THE HOLIDAYS… A very real trap for the keen FX trader during the Christmas break, is the lure of spending additional time in front of the screens in the continued quest for trading excellence. With some more free-time than usual, it’s possible that you become keen to take every opportunity possible to improve your trading skills. We’d like to quickly address a few issues that would suggest this time is better spent with family and loved ones.

One of the key exercises I believe all traders of any experience level should engage in, is the development of some key principles that you want to always have to mind, to help anchor you through the good times and the bad times during your trading life. These principles should help ground and guide you, they don’t need to be detailed and they will certainly develop for you over time, as you gain experience, but you will find some of the lessons you learn in the first 100 days of trading a live

This post explores the links between sports and trading. What approaches do professional traders and athletes have in common? Which sports activities can help traders improve their trading? And how does general sport help develop your trading skills? What do athletes and traders share? Professional traders and athletes have a lot of similarities, but handling stress stands out the most. There are many factors that contribute to a win or loss in both arenas, but keeping one’s head cool in the

The Ichimoku Kinko Hyo is one of those indicators you should have at least an understanding of because of its originality compared to Western technical indicators. It is advisable to use this tool in the long-term on daily and weekly charts, where it best displays a panoramic view of what is happening with a certain currency pair. One great thing about the Ichimoku Clouds, for instance, is that it doesn't need any filters as it has them already incorporated. Another of its particularities is

10,000hrs and the principle of practice making probable, not perfect… Malcolm Gladwell the famous investigative journalist is the most prominent proponent of the principle of the necessity of 10,000hrs of practice to the achieve excellence in any field, a rule he made famous in his fantastic 2008 ‘Outliers’. In the book, he outlines various stories that highlight the notion that to achieve a level of professionalism in any endeavour, based on a time commitment of four hours a day the average

Every first Friday of the month, the Non-Farm payrolls is released. Due to its impact on price action, we highly recommend you to read our Non-farm Payrolls special: How to Trade Non-Farm Payrolls . In this Special report, we gathered the advice and knowledge of some of our best contributors about the importance and impact of NFP on FX trading. However, there are many other events that shape the markets. Big news events can, and often do, cause big swings with a single movement going

To classify the USD as a risk currency – as often done by pundits these days - is at best misleading. It is of course correct if one classifies every currency as risk but compared to other currencies, it still ranks lowest among low risk currencies. In a normal market scenario, investors buy USD for its attraction – the outlook for 1) appreciation and 2) how well you are paid while you wait for 1). There are rather limited risk assumptions behind USD purchases. It is not a long time ago since

In this week’s installment I want to address a topic I touched on in previous segments, this is the notion of Psychological capital and its value in the preservation and profit of financial capital. For many traders the focus is purely on their fiscal profit and loss they fail to appreciate that this is only focusing on one store of capital resource and that a far greater resource lies within, that paying close a attention to your psychological P&L can have a material impact on the glide

Using the distance between your entry point and your stop loss is the most effective way to determine the maximum risk amount. Traders can tailor their positions to stay consistent with their maximum tolerable losses, for example by reducing the position size if the stop is further out. To size a position, you need to know: How much money you have to trade What percentage of your money you are willing to risk What is the distance between the entry price and the stop loss for every trade What is

This weeks installment of ‘Trading Truths’ will focus upon another core concept essential to building a lasting and successful trading career. ‘Trading Tight’ In the inaugural Trading Truths we addressed a principle that can be a serious detriment if not the ultimate down fall of your trading career:the ‘need’ to trade. Resisting the urgency to engage the markets is part of the foundation of ‘Trading Tight’. Trading tight really builds upon and encompasses the issues discussed in our first

Knowing Me & Knowing You As the famous Abba song line suggests, it is in knowing and understanding yourself that ultimately you come to have a better understand and empathy of others. There are few careers out there where this mantra is more relevant or a greater determinate of long term success or pending doom than trading. In the entirety of the trading process and the most prominent glitch or disconnect in the smooth running of the system is the the human input. The weak link in the

Another of the most important factors when developing or considering a trading system is the percentage of profitable trades, what we have called the Win Rate. The lack of understanding of the Win Rate figure goes also further as many traders think that a higher percentage of profitable trades is better than a lower number - but it is not. It all depends on how it relates to the Average Profit per trade, the trade frequency and the duration of the trades. The type of trading system you develop